Perkins is an associate professor of English at Prince George's Community College in Maryland. In this essay, she examines Pinter's effective mix of realism and the absurd in Mountain Language.

Harold Pinter has admitted that Mountain Language is based on the long history of oppression the Kurds have suffered as a minority group under Turkish rule. Critics have praised the play for its realistic depiction of the victims and oppressors in a totalitarian state. In an overview of Pinter and his work in Contemporary Dramatists, Lois Gordon applauds the play's "frightening images" of oppression. Douglas Kennedy, in his review of the play in New Statesman & Society writes that Mountain Language is "a highly condensed guided tour through state tyranny" presented through "a series of stark . . . images of political repression." Yet, Pinter's dramatic structure is not purely realistic. He combines realism with elements of the absurd in an...